


A Place to Land

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 11:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place to Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evening_Bat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evening_Bat/gifts).



> Holiday cardfic. Evening_bat requested: Riku - space. Thanks to xantissa for the duplication catch!

"What's this?" Riku asked, eyeing the gadget King Mickey had come all the way to Destiny Island to give him. It looked vaguely familiar, about the size of a cell phone but with only half as many buttons, sleek and silver. Unlike most cell phones, he got the feeling that he could drop this one and it just might bounce.

"Well," Mickey said, grinning like he already knew Riku was going to like this surprise, "apparently there's a tradition on _most_ worlds when someone turns eighteen...."

Riku stared. There was no way Mickey could have gotten him a boat, which just left--

"You _didn't."_ But oh gods, Riku hoped he had.

"The keys to a gummi ship!" Mickey announced, beaming hugely. "Cid and Tron designed it, so you can fly with up to three crew, or you can head out solo; it's fully automated. The link there is mostly just to get you onboard from planetside, but the ship's computer recognizes voice commands, so you can also control it remotely. It'll fuel pretty much anywhere, and you already know about the grid we've been setting up, so...welcome to space!"

Riku had to laugh. Mickey had said that so casually, like he was welcoming Riku to his castle, or his home town, not setting him free entirely. Because sure, he'd gotten better at staying in one place--with the dark paths working for him intermittently at best, he'd had to--but that didn't mean he liked it. He could always bum a ride off Sora, who still had the gummi ship he'd picked up three years ago, but Sora wasn't all that keen on traveling when there wasn't work to be done, and Riku hated to impose. It wasn't like he ever had a destination in mind. He just sometimes needed to see other horizons than the featureless curve at the edge of the sea.

"You're the _best,"_ he said, grinning when Mickey went all bashfully pleased with himself. "Seriously. You have _no idea."_

Only the touch of sympathy that turned Mickey's eyes soft told him that maybe he did.

***

Sora and Kairi were his first passengers, of course, Sora crawling over every inch of the ship and going nuts over all the upgrades, Kairi wandering through the cabins and the galley with a wistful little smile he didn't understand until she sat down with him in the cockpit. There was a station for a navigator, but he hadn't gotten around to turning those controls on yet, and that bank of lights was still dark.

"So...it looks like you'll have everything you need," she said with a brave smile that tried hard to look natural.

"I--" He shouldn't be surprised she'd already figured him out. She'd probably known before he had. "I'm just taking off a year. Before college. It's not like I won't be back."

She didn't argue with him, but her eyes still asked the question: _are you sure about that?_

And he wasn't. Not really. But she didn't need him to tell her that.

***

He still didn't have a real destination in mind when he set out at last, so he did the sensible thing--the _polite_ thing--and set a course for Disney. He was getting better at polite as well, or so he liked to think, and he really did want to thank the king again for his gift.

Unlike Sora, who could talk customization specs with Cid for _days_ , Riku had never had much to do with the gummis, but even he could tell the ship was a marvel. Most of the gummi craft he'd seen looked sort of lumpy, inside and out, graceful as a bumblebee in flight and about as impossible. This one was sleek, amazingly fast and beautifully responsive. While it was no battle cruiser, it was big enough for him to rattle around in a little, and the one time he ran into a Heartless patrol, he found out the automated systems were everything he could have hoped for and more. That had to have been Tron's doing, but when he tried thanking the ship's AI, he found out the computer was just a computer.

Traveling by gummi wasn't much like traveling the dark paths. There was actual scenery for one thing, and in the quiet spaces between warp points, he sometimes just sat in the captain's chair and brought up the forward screens, watching the stars and frozen by awe. He'd dreamed all his life of getting off his island, only when he finally did, he hadn't exactly had time to stop and admire the view. _This_ , though--this was beyond anything he'd hoped for, anything he'd even imagined, and with nowhere to go and no fight waiting for him at the end of it, for the first time he could remember, he actually felt at peace.

***

King Mickey was overjoyed to see him, but it was never going to stop being weird, having an entire castle follow Mickey's lead and welcome him open-armed.

Well. All but one, that is.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Donald demanded, glaring at him over folded arms and ignoring Goofy's panicked scolding. "I thought you'd gone home."

Opening his mouth with a smirk to assure Donald he was just passing through, he froze with a different reply strangling tight in his throat.

_I'm trying._

"Uh...Riku?" Goofy asked uncertainly when he'd been silent too long, Donald scowling like he couldn't make up his mind to be worried, contrite, or pissed over both of those things.

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head hard. "I just...never mind."

He hadn't meant to freak them out like that--hadn't meant to freak out the entire court once they noticed Donald's sudden solicitousness where he was concerned. But it was a punch in the gut to realize he'd spent two years losing and finding his friends, his world, and another year after that trying to reassure himself that they were all _back_ , only to realize the very things he'd given up everything for still didn't feel like home. It wasn't even Sora and Kairi, or that the place he had in their hearts was never going to be the anchor he'd hoped it would be. A harbor, yes, but never for long. It was the way he always felt so adrift, but only when he tried to put down roots.

When the king tracked him down, he was sitting at the highest point of the castle battlements, staring out at the horizon again, like he hadn't already broken out of that cage. He moved over when Mickey hopped up beside him and laughed softly at Mickey's concerned, "You okay, partner?" Mickey had this _gift._

"Fine," he said, mostly believing it. It wasn't like he didn't know how to deal with his messed-up head by now. "I should probably get going, though."

"You know you don't have to," Mickey said earnestly, "right?"

"I know." That was an understatement. He was pretty sure the rest of the cosmos could turn on him tomorrow, and Mickey would still hold the door open to let him _in_. "There's still a lot I want to see, though, and you know how it is. Wanderlust." That was what he was going to call it, anyway; it was as good a word as any.

"All right," Mickey said with an encouraging smile Riku must have looked like he needed. "Just so long as you remember the way back."

***

He didn't really want to revisit old haunts--he wasn't even certain he'd be welcome on most of the worlds he knew--so when he headed out again, this time he struck out into the black. It didn't take long to figure out why Sora had been raving over some of the upgrades; the next time Mickey told him something could fuel _anywhere_ , he wouldn't take that as hyperbole.

He coasted through nebulae, ran a few asteroid belts just to see if it could be done, mapped warp points in his spare time because Tron would devour that data like candy, and Riku had to find _some_ way of thanking him. The ship took care of itself, drinking down bits of gas clouds and snagging stray chunks of debris, and somewhere in its guts, a converter hummed cheerfully along, never more efficient than when they were in motion.

He'd maybe been gone a month before he got the urge to walk on grass again, to breathe air that hadn't been scrubbed and recycled, and the warp point he'd just mapped practically overlapped the perfect world for that. A scan from orbit told him it was inhabited, non-industrial, but he was good at blending in. On a whim he chose the land mass that had the fewest number of humans and dug through the hold lockers until he found a cloak and the camping gear someone had thoughtfully stowed.

The way his luck ran, he shouldn't have been surprised that setting down in an empty forest meant he came face-to-face with a lion, but he got the feeling this wasn't the same kind of talking lion Sora had told him about.

Hours later found him perched at the edge of a very comfortable chair in a very cozy sitting room while a very nice old faun fussed with an antique tea service and a small mountain of pastries. "Goodness," his host was saying, shaking his head, and Riku wasn't usually one to stare, but those short little horns poking through Pynos' curly white hair were just...adorable. They were _baby-goat adorable_ , and it was a good thing it was him and not Selphie sitting here, because Selphie wouldn't have been able to stop gushing for hours. "My grandsire told me about his adventures with Queen Lucy, but...you're certain you're not from Spare Oom?"

"Afraid not," Riku said, accepting a cup of tea that smelled of black currants and honey. "I'm from Destiny Island."

"Hm," Pynos said thoughtfully. "That must be to the East."

Following the instructions the lion had given him and the far more helpful directions of a few curious dryads, he made his way out of the forest and onto a vast, rolling grassland that looked to stretch for days. He didn't pay any attention to the far-off herds of horses he saw, having nothing to catch one with and no experience in the saddle to speak of.

Which of course meant they galloped up to catch _him_ instead.

"Look," he said patiently, "I'm just trying to get to Cair Paravel."

"And what business do you have there?" the big dappled grey who seemed to be the leader of the herd asked with an impatient stamp of the hoof.

"Honestly, I have no idea," Riku admitted with a shrug. "I just don't make a habit of arguing with lions."

It was a little weird to be sitting on something that talked, especially when his head was saying _person_ even though his eyes were still saying _horse_. On the other hand, the advice was definitely appreciated.

"Sit a little straighter, please. Not that straight. Try using your legs--no, your _entire_ \--yes, that's better. Well done! I think I feel a gallop coming on...."

The warning was even more appreciated, and by the time the entire herd had schooled him properly, passing him from back to back when one of them got tired, they'd covered the entire plain without stopping, and Riku could keep his seat from a walk to a mad, trumpeting gallop.

He wasn't sure a dozen horses and one rider allowed on sufferance made a proper cavalry charge, but when they reached the shores of Cair Paravel and found a familiar black army waiting for them, they gave it their best shot.

Heartless. He should have known he was here for a reason.

***

He thought at first the entire mouse nation was going to demand to come with him, irrationally charmed by his stories of a mouse king, but when the itch to travel caught him again, when he left, he managed to do it alone.

The ship was quiet after the bustle of court, and when he sat down at the controls, for a moment all he could feel was the emptiness all around, the warmth of the living world below muffled by silent distance. He almost wished he'd given in--would it have been so wrong to let another wanderer tag along?--but he knew better. Most people were meant to stay on their own worlds, not because they couldn't settle anywhere else, but because everyone connected to someone else somewhere, and the worlds needed those connections to keep them strong.

Anyway, it wasn't that bad. After the first couple of days, he didn't even notice it.

Mostly the lack of distractions made it easier to feel the tug when something inside him said _Here,_ aiming him straight at the nearest world.

***

"That's totally fucked up," Riku said when he found his voice again, staring at the princess in unabashed horror. It explained why she was hiding in the kitchen of a neighboring kingdom and dressed like some sort of wild girl of the woods, but...her own _father?_

"I know," she said, glancing up with a lopsided smile from the huge wooden table she'd just scrubbed clean. He should have been helping her--he'd offered, after all--but his soapy rag had dangled forgotten in his hand through nearly her entire story.

The kitchens were empty at this time of night, even the foul-tempered cook having bustled off to bed after the princess bribed the harridan into letting her make the prince's soup for the next day. Once the place was empty of everyone but them, she'd barred the door and shot him a hard look before shoving back the patchwork fur hood that had made her look half-feral at best. She was unsurprisingly pretty under the dirt and grime, and she scrubbed that off next, working brusquely and ignoring him completely when he didn't comment or freak out or...well, he could guess what she'd been afraid he'd do. Considering.

"So," he said at last, watching her lay out celery and onions and parsnips in neat little rows, "I guess if you want to reclaim your kingdom--"

Her head shot up jerkily at that, but instead of looking relieved at the offer he'd been about to make, she eyed him like she was questioning his sanity. "Why on earth would I want to do that?"

"Er."

"Do you have any idea how many ministers it takes to arrange a royal wedding? Not to mention the servants to cook for it," she informed him grimly, taking up a knife that looked way too big for the job at hand. "Pages to carry the word. Guests to arrange to come. _Town. Criers_." He was pretty sure that parsnip never knew what hit it. He did notice she hadn't peeled it first, though. "And don't forget the seamstresses. Cloth-of-gold is not easily worked. If you think I'm going back to an entire country ready to marry me off to an old man who never looked twice at me except to look too long--"

"No," he said softly, his heart somewhere in the pit of his stomach. "No, you're right. But...why are you...I mean, you don't _have_ to marry a prince. And no, that wasn't an offer."

She grinned at him for that, and if the humor in it was a trifle dark, well, it probably explained why he hadn't managed to ruin her life yet. Apparently someone had gotten there first.

"Well, he doesn't know he's getting a princess, does he? And by the time I'm through with him," she promised with a spark of mischief, "he'll be in love with _me."_

Riku thought he got it then, figured there had to be something there already for her to trust any man after what she'd been through, but damned if she wasn't going to make sure this one wanted her for herself. Tattered coats and all.

"I don't doubt it," he said, watching the dark edges ebb out of her smile like all she'd wanted was a little belief. "Only, uh...no offense, but...do you even know how to cook?"

Glancing down at the root she'd hacked into uneven pieces, some of which were a geometric impossibility, she tipped him a sheepish look with a shrug. "I...thought I could learn?"

Shaking his head, he held his hand out for the knife. "All right, move over," he said, grinning at her incredulous stare. "Only child, working mom. I know my way around a kitchen."

He had to admit, it was a nice change, finding a Keyhole before the Heartless could even get their foot in the door, so to speak. He stuck around for the wedding anyway, certain for once that he had time.

***

Tron was ecstatic over the data Riku brought back when he stopped in to check on things, not feeling any particular pull that meant danger, but...well, Gaia was the sort of world you wanted to keep an eye on. She wouldn't have such epic defenders if she weren't the Heartless vacation destination of the entire cosmos.

_"Oh, this is wonderful--Leon, have you seen this? I had no idea any of these worlds were so close--"_

"So much for getting anything done on the VR rooms," Leon bitched with a sigh, but he was smiling when he said it.

Smiling for Leon, anyway.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Just...you know, with all the work he did on the ship...."

"Don't worry about it. It was a hell of a lot more fun than laying another sewer line, and it actually kept Yuffie out of trouble for once."

Riku stared. "Uh...how many people helped out with that thing?" he had to ask.

Leon looked surprised that Riku didn't already know, more surprised still at Riku's shock when he said, "All of us."

***

He couldn't blame it on the Keyblade, even if he'd wanted to. Gaia was simply the first world where he'd ever really wanted to _stay_. He couldn't even have said why; people tended to put him to work everywhere he went, and the camaraderie was nice, but he'd had that back on the island. Maybe he just had a burning need to be commandeered by crazy airship pilots who favored acid-strength tea; to be grunted at in eerie unison by Cloud and Leon alike when he asked either of them a question before coffee; to apprentice himself to Aeris, because he might be dark, but he was not yet wise in the ways of _wicked_ , and she was the secret grandmaster. Sometimes a few Heartless showed up, and he took them out if he got there first, but mostly he did odd jobs and bummed around with the Restoration Committee and didn't think too much about why he was there. It was comfortable.

Which made it all the more wrenching when he woke up one day with the certainty that he needed to go.

It was some ridiculous hour before dawn, and he knew none of the others would be up except maybe Tron, so he sent out a bulk email and started gathering up his gear. He wasn't surprised when his computer chimed; he'd left it up for a reason.

 _"Riku? You're going now?"_ Tron asked. His voice was always more robotic heard over speakers rather than in the data world, but the concern carried through loud and clear.

"Yeah. It's fine; I can sleep on the way," Riku said, hoping that was true. "I know I'm heading somewhere out past Ivalice, anyway."

_"Oh. So I guess you don't have any time to spare."_

"Sorry. Take care of folks for me, will you?"

_"Of course! But...Riku--"_

He'd already signaled the ship to bring him onboard, so he didn't hear the rest of Tron's protest, but there wasn't much left to say as it was. He was starting to figure _this_ out, too, why Sora mostly stayed put and Riku could never seem to settle, while Mickey came and went as he pleased. Part of it probably had to do with their Keyblades, but part of it was just them.

Sora was all about home, and everything he'd ever done was in defense of that. Mickey, well, Mickey was a king through and through; he was used to thinking on a larger scale than most people, to borders that went further than a fence that marked out one private piece of land. They still tended to orbit those places, and if they put down different kinds of roots, it was still an anchor.

And then there was him. Tied to no place. Bound to no one. Able to drop everything and go wherever he was needed, because he never held on to much as it was.

He was exhausted by the time he put in at Gaia again months later, bypassing Disney mostly because his heart was telling him Mickey was on the move again, and what other reason did he have to visit without feeling like an imposition? So it was Gaia he went back to, wondering blearily if he still had a room at the castle or whether they'd moved him somewhere else, and he just about ran right into Leon before his tired brain worked out what the doom-radiating obstacle in his path was.

Blocking the middle of the hall, Leon stood with his arms folded and a scowl tugging at the scar between his eyes, glaring at Riku like he'd kidnapped their...wait. _Had_ he ever kidnapped Kairi? He'd taken her from Hook, but he didn't think that counted.

When he blinked at the man in confusion, swaying on his feet, Leon's scowl _powered up_. It would have been fascinating if it hadn't been aimed at him.

"What?" he managed, neck prickling uneasily.

"You left."

"Uh." He hadn't been expecting _that_ , and he cringed inwardly at the train wreck he knew he was about to get into, but-- "I do that," he said, standing his ground, because he'd never claimed he could be any world's personal Keyblade master. He couldn't even be that for his birth world.

"Without telling anyone."

It was his turn to frown, because.... "I...do that too?"

"Dumbass," Leon pronounced with deep conviction, shaking his head. "We thought one of us would be going with you."

Wait. "What?" Riku blurted, knowing he was too tired for this conversation, that he would _never_ be awake enough for this conversation, because that just didn't make sense. "You--no. You really can't do that--they need you _here."_

"Well, not all of us at once," Leon scoffed with a crooked half-smirk. "And if they did, you'd know, right?"

And come running. Leon had a point.

"You don't have to do it alone," Leon said bluntly, holding Riku's gaze. "And if Tron has his way, you won't be; he's been taking those maps of yours and talking about guard posts."

Guard posts. Of course. Because if Keyblade masters had a 'type,' then maybe world defenders did too, and this wasn't just the Restoration Committee talking; this was Traverse Town. They'd take a stand and defend it wherever they found it, but only when they were on the losing side. Let them start winning, and they'd start thinking about ways to take out the problem for good.

"And anyway, Sora did it too--or did you forget that part?"

Well, yeah. He kind of had. But that was _Sora._

"I--" _I don't know. I'll think about it. I'd kiss you if Cloud wouldn't deck me._ He didn't know what answer to give.

Leon snorted, glare softening at last. "Whatever. Go get some rest," he advised, dropping a hand on Riku's shoulder for a brief, friendly squeeze. "We'll talk more when you don't look like a refugee from Halloween Town."

Which argued that he still had a room here after all. Which maybe went along with a welcome he'd thought only three people anywhere would give him, one that couldn't be revoked, came without strings, except for the one meant to lead him back.

"All right," he said, agreeing to more than just the bed.

That night he dreamed of stars, only this time there was more than just the emptiness and the pull: there was the reminder that home was people, and he could always take his with him.


End file.
